CENTRAL AMERICAN REFUGEES LEAVE TEMPORARY HOME IN MIAMI STADIUM

MIAMI -- Paolo Picado sat on a bundle containing his clothing and all his other possessions in Thursday's fading twilight, preparing to bid farewell to the only home he has known since he arrived in the United States.

Picado and 198 other Central American refugees were being forced to leave Bobby Maduro Miami Stadium because the Baltimore Orioles are to arrive at the stadium on Monday for spring training.

Picado, a single man, was going to the home of a friend. Other refugees were sent to vacant apartments scattered throughout Dade County.

"In Nicaragua, I was a driver and a mechanic, and I hope I will be able to get the same job here," he said as he waited in the baseball stadium's parking lot for a ride.

Pablo Canton, assistant director of the city's community development department, said the city would pay for the refugees' first month's rent with $30,000 that had poured in from private donations, as well as an additional $70,000 collected in telethons by Spanish television stations WLTV-Ch. 23 and WSCV-Ch. 51.

City officials, working with volunteers from Miami's Presbyterian churches, spent most of the day trying to move refugee families into apartments that had been donated by church members.